All Those Pretty Paper Packs!

Every scrapbooker I know has an obsession. Some collect buttons, glimmer mists or brads, others hoard punches, flowers or ribbons. MY obsession is paper. Every time I enter a scrapbooking store, I loose all common sense when I get anywhere close to paper. This is actually the one scrapbooking goodness that made me fall in love with scrapping. Beautiful papers and I have a long term relationship.... I love the textures, the colours, the patterns, and they all seem unique to me!

Which can be problematic when the time comes to use them. I am afraid of cutting them, 'hurting' them, even opening a new paper pack feels like a sin to me. I have paper packs that I bought over a year ago that remained untouched. So this weekend, I took one of these leap of faith I was holding on to, and opened TWO brand 'new' packs, nothing less! Not so new in fact, as I am talking about 'Out of Print' from Basic Grey, and 'Et Cetera' from BoBunny. Some of my friends went through 2-3 entire packs each of Et Cetera in the last year, while I watched them, 'envy' them for having the 'strength' to open their paper packs and use them! I admit, I have issues.... :)

So by deciding to open these two pretty paper packs, I also committed to make one of the nicest layouts I ever made. I was not going to be broken hearted and regret this ultimate decision!

Here is the double page layout I made using papers from both collection (Out of Print and Et Cetera), as well as 2 pages of the beautiful 'French Kiss' collection from Glitz for the background page.

I love the romantic atmosphere that transpires in this layout, the colours and the multiple layers of paper I created. Here is a close-up of page 1.

As I often do, I distressed and aged the paper using distress ink and stain to give it a vintage look. I also made an opening in the corner where flowers are peeking out, as if they were growing behind the paper.

Here is a close-up of  page 2. This page took quite a few hours to create, as my head was blooming with ideas! I wanted to create a multi-layered layout because it makes me used many of the papers I like, but just in small pieces so I am left with plenty to use on other layouts! This is perfect for the paper lover that I am...

I painted swirls on one of my canvas butterflies (Maya Road) using glimmer glam (Tattered Angels), which I also sprayed with glimmer mist from the same company.

Of course, I couldn't create such a romantic layout without putting one of my favorites elements: the Tim Holtz keys are also one of my obsessions, that I preserve and use only on very special layouts or cards...

I hope you enjoyed this post. Please feel free to leave a comment, and share what YOUR scrapbooking obsession is!

Thanks for stopping by!

New DT projects

Last week, my Diva friends and I attended a crop in Dixon's Corner. We had a lot of fun and we created in a very relaxed atmosphere. This was a good place for me to be at the time, because I was tasked, as a design team member for Tina's Scrapbooking Creations, to create layouts with some paper collections that do not correspond to my usual style; I named  Karen Foster design hockey paper collection and Imaginisce Hippity Hop paper collection.

So, I had to think outside the box... to say that I was out of my comfort zone is an huge understatement!  To boost my inspiration, I picked some of my favorite pictures of the kids.  Here is what I created with the hockey paper.

Since I just love working with corrugated cardboard, I used plenty of it on this layout to give it a boyish and grungy look. I used black shinny cardstock that kind of gives a icy look to the background. I like the final result! This is more 'me' than I expected when I started working on it.

The second layout I made is a single page of my little sweetie when she turned 3 years old. She received a cute raincoat and hat outfit from my Mom for her birthday and played that 'going on a trip' game. Using some of the Imaginisce Hippity Hop paper and white dotted cardstock, I created a girly and childish looking layout.

I stamped here and there around the page using a Tim Holtz stamp to create some kind of a frame to the layout. I like the result, but it really forced me out of my comfort zone.  I'm happy I made it as my daughter likes it very much.

Thanks for stopping by!